She’s been reclaiming her time since before you were born.

"Reclaiming my time." These three words, spoken on July 27, have catapulted Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters even further into the stratosphere of cultural icons currently fighting the Trump administration and the Republican agenda being pushed in the House and Congress. But the 78-year-old representative of California's 43rd district has been reclaiming her time long since before her ruthless questioning of former hedge fund manager and current Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin.

Here are five of the most inspiring actions and moments from the 40-plus year public service career of the representative who simply will not: Auntie Maxine Waters.

She drowned out the shifting answer of Trump's Secretary of the Treasury, Steve Mnuchin, with words that need no qualification: "Reclaiming my time! Reclaiming my time! Reclaiming my time!"

In fact, the gentlelady from California's words have even been turned into a literal gospel song. Responding to Teen Vogue's request for comment, the musician behind "Reclaiming My Time - Gospel Mix," Mykal Kilgore, says he was inspired to create the song "because Auntie Maxine reminds me of all of the talented, intelligent, and driven women that raised me."

"This Reclaiming My Time moment is all about her having the understanding of her power. It was her time and no matter who tried to encroach she was going to take it back...and she did," he says.

She wrote a landmark bill that led to California's divestment from South Africa during the era of its inherently racist apartheid system.

While still an assemblywoman in the California State Assembly, Waters authored, then spent seven years supporting, radically progressive legislation that called for the divestment of more than $8.3 billion of investments from South Africa in the form of state pension funds that relied on investments with companies that did business with the country. The political fearlessness and determination shown during this time would become key themes of her political career. Her bill failed six times before it eventually passed in 1986, but Waters remained unmovable in her effort to divest from South Africa throughout these years.

In 1992, Waters showed up uninvited to a meeting with President George H.W. Bush to reclaim her narrative during the aftermath of the uprisings that resulted from the acquittal of the four officers who beat Rodney King.

According to a New York Timesreport, upon hearing that President Bush had invited both members of Congress and his Cabinet members to discuss the aftermath of the Los Angeles riots, Waters showed up to the White House unannounced to set the record straight. The California rep told the president how she's been "trying to define these issues.” “I don’t intend to be excluded or dismissed," she said, continuing, "What I didn't do is to use the airwaves to call people hoodlums and thugs for burning down their own communities. It only makes them madder when you call them hoodlums and thugs, as the president did."

Two years later, Waters told Republican State Representative Peter King to "shut up."

In many ways the original "reclaiming my time" moment: Waters deployed this mic-drop directive in 1994 while defending a female White House aide from what Waters deemed an overly aggressive line of question from Republican Representative Peter King during a hearing concerning alleged corruption of Bill Clinton's administration. As ThinkProgressreported, Waters was angered when King, who had already gone over his allotted time, continued his questioning despite being asked by committee chairman Henry B. González to stop. The following day, Representatives James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-WI) and Gerald Solomon (R-NY) not only called for Waters’s command to be cut from the official record but also advocated that she be subjected to disciplinary action. In response to the criticism, Waters responded immediately exclaiming to the assembled legislators, "It is only when a woman attempts to exercise her rights in this House that we have this kind of intimidation."

More recently, she was one of the first lawmakers to officially call for President Donald Trump's impeachment.

When Waters spoke at an open-mic at a Washington, D.C., venue this past April, she told the crowd, "Donald Trump is someone that found his way to the presidency of the United States of America —I still don’t know how. But he’s someone that I’m committed to getting impeached.” To a raucous crowd, she continued, "He’s a liar! He’s a cheat! He’s a con man!” Never someone to back away from her strongly held views, Waters doubled down on her intention of impeaching the president in an interview with Teen Vogue, in which she said to writer Lincoln Anthony Blades:

I believe that this president should be impeached. If we discover that
there was collusion and that he strategized with and planned with the
Kremlin and Putin to undermine our elections in any way to support
Trump and undermine Hillary Clinton, and if we discover that there are
telephone calls and emails and trips back and forth to Russia, and if
we discover that they were involved in exchanging information, et cetera, he
should be impeached. I think we should go for it.

Months before "reclaiming my time," Maxine Waters inspired one of the most empowering Twitter trends of 2017.